I’ve been reading a bunch about setting goals: how to do it, when to do it, blocks to achieving them and so much more. And while it’s helpful for me to understand what goal setting is about, I found that I wasn’t actually sure what I wanted in the first place. It’s as though I had all the pots and pans for the baked good, but didn’t know what I was actually baking. I knew it was time to get crystal clear on what I actually wanted to put into motion.
In order to find out what I wanted to work toward, I decided that I would start with a glance around at the things I was already about and/or doing in 7 key areas of my life: 1) social relationships 2) financial 3) spiritual health 4) mental health 5) physical health 6) career and 7) family life. Once I had some categories for my life to fit into, (!) I felt more organized to start identifying what was going really well in these areas, and where I wanted to put in more effort. For example, in my spiritual health category, I found that what was going really well was my individual meditation practice and what needed some work was a community practice of sorts.
Once I identified where I wanted to focus in that category, I began making my way to some goals in that category. I listed out as many as I could think of. It was a good brainstorming activity. And, like any good brainstorming, editing was necessary.
To begin my editing process, I started to look at each goal and really consider why it felt important to me. In order to do this, I decided to ask myself some questions:
- Will I be happier if I reach this goal?
- Will my health improve if I attain this goal?
- Will I be more financially secure if I reach this goal?
- Will I feel more socially connected if I achieve this goal?
- Will I feel more peace of mind if I reach this goal?
- Will reaching this goal improve my relationships with my family?
- Will I feel more secure overall if I reach this goal?
Finally, I took the goals that were left and asked myself a few more questions to whittle them down:
- Is this my goal or someone else’s? Sometimes we adopt ideas that are really about pleasing someone else (ie our parents). If it’s not really your goal, let it go.
- Does this goal feel in alignment with who I am as a person? Let go of any goal that is in direct conflict with your morals and values.
- Do I have what it takes to emotionally accomplish this goal? Goals take emotional energy. It’s important to be realistic about how much you have in the tank to make it happen. Otherwise, it feels like a punch in the gut when you can’t achieve it and that leads to some pretty low feelings.
- Can I see myself completing this goal? Can you envision achieving this goal? If you can’t, chances are it’s just a bit too much right now, so let it go and consider re-visiting it later.
From there, I wrote down just four goals that I want to focus on. After that, I decided to take it one step further and check in with myself on why these four goals were most important to me now. Here are a few more questions I asked:
- What do I stand to gain from achieving this goal?
- What are things that may get in my way of reaching this goal?
- What skills do I need?
- Who can/should help me?
- What is my plan?
That’s it! So now I’ve got my four goals and my reasons for them. Each day, I take a few moments to check in and see how I am advancing toward these goals. It takes time and some discipline, but I love knowing that I’m taking steps to determine the direction I want for myself instead of just leaving it to chance. Happy goal setting!
